


Good moves

by sunsetseas77



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Canon-Based, Chess, Fitting In, Gen, Kara and positive peer feedback, Minor Eliza Danvers, No chess game is described, Sort Of, Teens, adjustments, appearances by Luthors, sibling shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-20
Updated: 2018-09-20
Packaged: 2019-07-14 22:08:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16049546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunsetseas77/pseuds/sunsetseas77
Summary: Young Alex and Kara crash a chess tournament. It’s completely Alex’s idea.“It’ll be fine,” Alex tells her. “Come on, you’re this way.” She takes Kara’s hand in what is probably meant to be a reassuring manner and leads Kara to her seat for the first game.Kara is sure this is not a good idea.





	Good moves

**Author's Note:**

> All I know about chess comes from playing it about a dozen times (not well), maybe 2-3 movies about chess players, and the internet. More below.

The day is supposed to be spent either quietly in the hotel room or doing a little sightseeing. Metropolis is, after all, a metropolis, and Eliza cautions Alex to be smart about places to take Kara if they venture out - maybe consider art galleries or the aquarium. Alex rolls her eyes for Kara to see as she agrees with her mother. Eliza promises to be back in the afternoon, when her meetings are scheduled to end, and she is out the door.

Alex flips through television channels while Kara sits at the small desk, trying to concentrate on her book but aware of Alex’s restless movement. About ten minutes after Eliza departs, Alex springs off the bed and calls to Kara, “Get ready. We’re going to head out.”

“Do we have to?” Kara replies. She knows Eliza wants to do outings over this extended family weekend after her work obligations wrap up today. She’s unenthused about multiple days of such activities.

“Yes, come on,” Alex urges.

Kara sighs but pulls her shoes on and dons a light jacket over her sweater and crisp new jeans. Alex waits impatiently by the door, decked out in jeans and a long-sleeved shirt with a questionable band’s name across it.

They exit the elevator and Alex moves quickly. Kara works to keep up while insuring she doesn’t make solid contact with any of the guests milling about.

On the sidewalk, Kara finally reaches Alex’s side. “Where are we going?”

“I have an idea for what we can do,” Alex answers, speaking quickly with eyes forward. “Managing you in a big city or sitting in a hotel room doesn’t really fill any of my requirements for a fun, or at least a rewarding, day.” She glances at Kara. “Did you see the groups of kids that were at our hotel?”

Kara nods.

“They’re school teams visiting for a chess tournament. I heard them talking in the lobby last night when we checked in, and then this morning at breakfast. It sounded like it was big, hundreds of kids from Metropolis and nearby areas. I asked around and it’s a major tournament that isn’t too far from here. And, it could be worth a little cash.”

“What does that have to do with us?”

“Kara, it’s $2,000 for first prize with smaller cash prizes for high scoring players. A little pocket change would be nice. It’s for middle school grades, so you fit the criteria. You’ve told me chess is fairly easy for you. It’s a slam dunk,” Alex wheedles.

Kara’s puzzled by this answer, partly because she has no idea whether a slam dunk is a good thing or not. “Are you saying I should play? I guess chess is okay, but I’m not sure it would be a good idea. I’m not supposed to draw attention to myself.”

“You’re a nerd playing chess with a bunch of other nerds playing chess,” Alex explains. “How are you going to stand out? Come on.” Alex slings an arm lightly across Kara’s shoulders, a gesture Kara both craves and has learned to suspect, and grins. “You want me to like hanging out with you, right?”

Kara meets Alex’s eyes and smiles tentatively at her.

“Great,” Alex crows. “It’s this way.”

They arrive at the venue and Alex kicks into reconnaissance mode, eavesdropping on the process while moving among registering players, coaches, and parents who don’t give a meandering young teen a second glance. She returns to Kara’s side with a plan.

“I’ve found the most sympathetic-sounding registration official. Wish me luck.”

“What if I don’t want to?” Kara replies hesitantly.

“Fine,” Alex huffs but it’s all bluster. “Then just do your lost puppy look for me.”

“I don’t know what that means,” Kara says as she peers at Alex, then looks down self-consciously and fiddles with her glasses.

“Perfect,” Alex half-shouts. “Keep doing that.”

Alex makes her way back to registration and starts up a conversation with an older woman with salt-and-pepper hair and deep laugh lines who’s listening to her closely.

Kara can hear everything and learns she’s a homesick Russian, Kara Starikov, on a month-long exchange, who’s quite good at chess. Alex points at Kara during this and Kara raises her hand, which the official matches with a polite nod.

Alex asks if Kara can play but if they could pay the fee when her mother, who’s sightseeing elsewhere, shows up; Kara is just so excited that they stumbled across this.

The official looks dubious but checks her lists, asking for Kara’s rating. Alex must have calculated a realistic response from her brief investigation because the answer is written down without comment. The woman tells Alex that it’s an open tournament and there are a few slots because of dropouts if Kara wants to play up. Alex agrees and thanks her repeatedly as she nods and dictates next steps to Alex.

Alex walks quickly back to Kara, looking pleased with the start to her morning.

“Can you sound more like you did when I first met you?” she asks Kara.

“What? Why?”

“An accent would be good. At least around the officials. To go with your cover story.”

“Alex! What have you gotten me into?” Kara asks, exasperated with her foster sister even as she slips a bit of altered pronunciation into her speech.

“It’ll be fine,” Alex tells her. “Come on, you’re this way.” She takes Kara’s hand in what is probably meant to be a reassuring manner and leads Kara to her seat for the first game.

Kara is sure this is not a good idea.

But she finds she’s feeling an odd sense of comfort as the room starts to settle. The city had been so loud, and this space is muted, calm. Non-players quietly move off to waiting areas while the competitors are more restrained in volume and action than most humans of similar age that she’s experienced.

She follows Alex to the table, where Alex subtly coaches her to shake the hand being held out to her by Paul, a red-headed boy with freckles, before Alex has to leave the tournament room. Maybe she can do this to make Alex happy, Kara thinks. And to show she can fit in.

As soon as the tournament starts, Kara is mesmerized. The steady sound of clocks and the scribbling of notations, the black and white pattern and the regimented movements across it repeated at table after table, the way each player carefully handles pieces, it’s soothing and she doesn’t want to go back outside. She’s able to relax and keep her movements soft with minimal effort.

In her first game she decimates her challenger on the board, not realizing that’s what is happening. After the result has been verified, Paul leaves the table close to tears. Kara feels terrible and recognizes that she may need to tone it down to avoid both attention and demoralized opponents.

And she does. She makes the next game more competitive, and then opponents in later rounds actually ramp up the difficulty. But Kara’s advantage, playing three-dimensional strategy games with countless permutations for years at home, remains.

She finds Alex after each finish and Alex gives her shoulders a quick massage and her ego words of praise and encouragement, smiling the whole time. She also hands snacks and drinks to Kara that she must have brought from their stash in the hotel or purchased with the limited dollars in her pocket. 

Kara sees a few officials and coaches starting to look her way for more than cursory glances between rounds three and four, but she’s doing a decent job of being nondescript. She’s almost lost once in those first rounds, even if it was intentional.

In the next game, she almost loses accidentally when wavering focus combines with her underestimating a very young-looking opponent named Yousef whose game belies his round face and perky smile. He brushes black hair off of his face after the last move of the game and shakes her hand firmly. “You’re really good,” he declares. It warms her, receiving sincere, uninhibited admiration from a peer when she hasn’t heard such a comment since, well, since Krypton.

The game after defeating Yousef finds her across from Zora, a girl Kara’s age with curly dark brown hair. Her smile widens until her dimples are divots when Kara says she likes her name, and she records her moves with the very tip of her tongue sticking out of the side of her mouth.

When Kara feels eyes on her during their game, she turns to find a tall woman with shoulder-length, honey-colored hair and calculating eyes assessing her. Kara has figured out what wealth looks like on this planet and this woman’s clothing, carriage, hair, and makeup all scream it. She doesn’t look like any of the officials, which means she would be the first coach or parent that Kara has seen allowed to observe match play. Kara hears the clock stop and turns to make her move. When she looks again, the woman is gone.

A hard-fought win over Zora moves her up to a higher board for the fifth time in five games with two remaining. She’s feeling uneasy with the creep of increasing attention.

Kara’s relieved when Alex informs her during the break that she’d been trying to stall on telling Eliza their location since 45 minutes ago, but when the messages started including threats of the parental variety Alex had finally called her back. Eliza is on her way. As Alex wanders off to keep an eye out for her mother, Kara releases a long exhale, letting the tension that had started to build in her drain.

When Eliza arrives, Alex signals Kara and, according to plan, Kara walks over to her first to tell Eliza with genuine excitement about how much she’s enjoyed the experience and how nice the other kids have been to her. How this differs from her life so far in Midvale is left unsaid. 

She tells Eliza she’s ready to go and the two of them inform the tournament staff that something has come up and Kara needs to leave the competition. Alex’s delayed appearance as they take their leave is met with a shrewd glance from Eliza, but she leaves it at that.

As the three of them are walking to the door, Kara realizes she left her jacket on the chairback in the last round. Eliza waves her off to get it and leans against the wall to wait, Alex standing several feet away from her mother.

“It’s too bad you had to scratch,” Yousef pops up beside her to say as she’s grabbing her jacket. “I would have liked to see if you ended up across from the highest rated player here.”

“Why?” Kara asks, a crinkle forming on her forehead.

Yousef raises his eyebrows and smiles. “You might be able to beat her. She’s a seventh-grader like me, but so far beyond.” He makes a mind-expanding gesture. Kara knows that one.

He points past Kara. “I think she might be disappointed too.”

Kara turns to look and catches sight of a small, dark-haired girl wearing a tweed skirt and solid blazer. Kara can just make out part of her profile through thick hair as she talks animatedly to a tournament official, gesturing at the posting of players for the higher boards. 

As Kara watches, the woman who had so closely scrutinized her earlier appears next to the girl. She speaks sharply, then heads towards a nearby door and exits the room. The girl turns away from the official and trails behind her, shoulders now slumped.

“Why would she be disappointed?” Kara asks, intrigued.

“Because she outclasses pretty much everyone here. I wouldn’t be surprised if 90% of her games today bore her.”

Kara is still looking at where the girl disappeared, and a frown works its way onto her face. “That’s too bad. Aren’t games supposed to be fun? I was having fun.” Her expression slides into thoughtful. “Which was kind of unexpected because chess has just been okay when I’ve played it before.”

Yousef gives her a curious look that’s interrupted by Alex hurrying up to them. “Kara, we have to go.” She looks to Yousef. “Hi.”

“Hi,” he responds, then turns back to Kara. “It was nice to meet you, Kara. I hope you keep playing and having fun.” He departs with a wave that Kara returns happily as she calls “Thank you” after him.

Alex’s arm is back around Kara’s shoulders and Kara knows what’s coming. Alex jostles her gleefully. “Turns out you scored high enough to earn a little prize money even after the fee. Let’s go collect before Mom makes us leave without it.”

Kara softens under the slight tightening of Alex’s grip and allows herself to be drug off to the awards table.

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies for anything egregiously wrong around how chess tournaments run – I don’t know if prize money is ever an option and the # of rounds here may be a bit higher than for a normal 1-day kid’s tournament. I don’t know if walk-ins can get into chess tournaments, but it lets Alex be a bit of a hustler and Kara’s faux manager, which was fun to think about given canon Alex.  
> This is loosely set during Kara’s first year on Earth, more in the latter six months. I don’t know the timeline for Jeremiah getting taken away - I just left him out of the story. DC Bombshells => Kara’s alias


End file.
